Chuck Benton
| Softporn Adventure | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Publisher(s) | On-Line Systems |
| Designer(s) | Chuck Benton |
| Platform(s) | Apple II, Atari 8-bit, DOS |
| Release |
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| Genre(s) | Adventure |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
Softporn Adventure is a comedic, adult-oriented text adventure game produced for the Apple II in 1981. The game was created by Charles Benton and released by On-Line Systems, later renamed Sierra On-Line. Years later, Softporn Adventure inspired the Leisure Suit Larry series of adult-oriented videogames, and the first entry in that series, 1987's Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards, was a nearly direct graphical adaptation of Softporn Adventure.
Chuck Benton, a Massachusetts native, had a difficult time finding a publisher for Softporn until Ken Williams discovered it at a trade show and decided to give the game a chance.
In the game, the player (playing a down-on-his-luck party animal) searches for certain items that will allow him to win the affections of three beautiful (and sometimes not-so-beautiful) women. Benton claimed that parts of the game were based on his own life, but did not specify which ones.
Softporn Adventure was originally written for the Apple II in Applesoft BASIC in 1981 by programmer Chuck Benton. Benton programmed the game as an exercise to teach himself programming on the Apple II, and did not initially intend to promote the game commercially. Benton's friends enjoyed the game and encouraged him to self-publish it. Sometime in 1981, Benton was selling his game at a trade show where he encountered Ken Williams, co-founder and President of On-Line Systems (today better known as Sierra On-Line). Williams eventually decided to release the game as part of On-Line Systems' catalog.
The game's box cover and advertisement features three nude women and a male waiter in a hot tub, shot at Ken and Roberta Williams's home. From left to right in the hot tub are Diane Siegel, On-Line's production manager; Susan Davis, On-Line's bookkeeper and the wife of Bob Davis, the creator of Ulysses and the Golden Fleece; Rick Chipman, an actual waiter from a local restaurant, The Broken Bit; and Roberta Williams. The ad was considered somewhat scandalous at the time because of the degree of nudity displayed.The photographer was Brian Wilkinson, a local newspaper editor and acquaintance of Ken Williams. Wilkinson shot several dozen takes before arriving at the image finally used for the cover, but only a few of them still exist.
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